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Delivering data from Yandex Managed Service for PostgreSQL to Yandex Managed Service for Apache Kafka® using Debezium

Written by
Updated at April 9, 2025

You can track data changes in Managed Service for PostgreSQL and send them to Managed Service for Apache Kafka® using Change Data Capture (CDC).

In this article, you will learn how to create a virtual machine in Yandex Cloud and set up Debezium, software used for CDC.

The support cost includes:

Getting started

  1. Create a source cluster with the following settings:

    • Hosts: Publicly available
    • Database: db1
    • User: user1

  2. Create a Managed Service for Apache Kafka® target cluster in any suitable configuration with publicly available hosts.

  3. Create a virtual machine with Ubuntu 20.04 and a public IP address.

  4. If you are using security groups, configure them to enable connecting to the clusters both from the internet and from the created VM. In addition, enable connecting to this VM over SSH from the internet:

  5. Connect to a virtual machine over SSH and perform preliminary setup:

    1. Install the dependencies:

      sudo apt update && \
    sudo apt install kafkacat openjdk-17-jre postgresql-client --yes

      Check that you can use it to connect to the Managed Service for Apache Kafka® source cluster over SSL.

    2. Create a folder for Apache Kafka®:

      sudo mkdir -p /opt/kafka/

    3. Download and unpack the archive with Apache Kafka® executable files in this folder. For example, to download and unpack Apache Kafka® 3.0, run the command:

      wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/kafka/3.0.0/kafka_2.13-3.0.0.tgz && \
sudo tar xf kafka_2.13-3.0.0.tgz --strip 1 --directory /opt/kafka/

      You can check the current Apache Kafka® version on the page with project downloads.

    4. Install certificates on the VM and check the availability of clusters:

    1. Create a folder that will store the files required for the operation of the Debezium connector:

      sudo mkdir -p /etc/debezium/plugins/

    2. The Debezium connector can connect to Managed Service for Apache Kafka® broker hosts if an SSL certificate is added to Java secure storage (Java Key Store). For added storage security, add a password, at least 6 characters long, to the -storepass parameter:

      sudo keytool \
    -importcert \
    -alias YandexCA -file /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/Yandex/YandexInternalRootCA.crt \
    -keystore /etc/debezium/keystore.jks \
    -storepass <JKS_password> \
    --noprompt

Preparing the source cluster

  1. Assign the mdb_replication role to user1.

    This is necessary to create a publication for Debezium to monitor changes in a Managed Service for PostgreSQL cluster.

  2. Connect to the db1 database under user1.

  3. Add test data to the database. In this example, a simple table with information from car sensors is used.

    Create a table:

    CREATE TABLE public.measurements (
    "device_id" text PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
    "datetime" timestamp NOT NULL,
    "latitude" real NOT NULL,
    "longitude" real NOT NULL,
    "altitude" real NOT NULL,
    "speed" real NOT NULL,
    "battery_voltage" real,
    "cabin_temperature" real NOT NULL,
    "fuel_level" real
);

    Populate the table with data:

    INSERT INTO public.measurements VALUES
    ('iv9a94th6rzt********', '2020-06-05 17:27:00', 55.70329032, 37.65472196,  427.5,    0, 23.5, 17, NULL),
    ('rhibbh3y08qm********', '2020-06-06 09:49:54', 55.71294467, 37.66542005, 429.13, 55.5, NULL, 18, 32),
    ('iv9a94th678t********', '2020-06-07 15:00:10', 55.70985913, 37.62141918,  417.0, 15.7, 10.3, 17, NULL);

  4. Create a publication for the table:

    CREATE PUBLICATION mpg_publication FOR TABLE public.measurements;

Configure Debezium

  1. Connect to the virtual machine over SSH.

  2. Download an up-to-date Debezium connector and unpack it to the /etc/debezium/plugins/ directory.

    You can check the current connector version on the project page. The commands for version 1.9.4.Final are below.

    VERSION="1.9.4.Final"
wget https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/io/debezium/debezium-connector-postgres/${VERSION}/debezium-connector-postgres-${VERSION}-plugin.tar.gz && \
sudo tar -xzvf debezium-connector-postgres-${VERSION}-plugin.tar.gz -C /etc/debezium/plugins/

  3. Create a file named /etc/debezium/mdb-connector.conf with the Debezium connector settings for connecting to the source cluster:

    name=debezium-mpg
connector.class=io.debezium.connector.postgresql.PostgresConnector
plugin.name=pgoutput
database.hostname=c-<cluster_ID>.rw.mdb.yandexcloud.net
database.port=6432
database.user=user1
database.password=<user1_password>
database.dbname=db1
database.server.name=mpg
table.include.list=public.measurements
publication.name=mpg_publication
slot.name=debezium_slot
heartbeat.interval.ms=15000
heartbeat.topics.prefix=debezium-heartbeat
snapshot.mode=always

    Where:

    • name: Logical name of the Debezium connector. Used for the connector's internal needs.

    • database.hostname: Special FQDN for connection to the source cluster's master host.

      You can get the cluster ID with the list of clusters in the folder.

    • database.user: PostgreSQL user name.

    • database.dbname: PostgreSQL database name.

    • database.server.name: Name of the database server that Debezium will use when choosing a topic for sending messages.

    • table.include.list: Names of tables for Debezium to track changes in. Specify full names that include the schema name (default: public). Debezium will use values from this field when selecting a topic for sending messages.

    • publication.name: Name of the publication created on the source cluster.

    • slot.name: Name of the replication slot Debezium will create for the publication.

    • heartbeat.interval.ms and heartbeat.topics.prefix: Heartbeat settings required for Debezium.

    • snapshot.mode: Type of snapshot created at connector startup. For the connector to run properly, set this parameter to always.

Prepare the target cluster

  1. Create a topic to store data from the source cluster:

    • Name: mpg.public.measurements.

      Data topic names follow the <server_name>.<schema_name>.<table_name> convention.

      According to the Debezium configuration file:

      • The mpg server name is specified in the database.server.name parameter.
      • The public schema name is specified together with the measurements table name in the table.include.list parameter.

    If you need to track data changes in multiple tables, create a separate topic for each one of them.

  2. Create a service topic to track the connector status:

    • Name: debezium-heartbeat.mpg

      Service topic names follow the <prefix_for_heartbeat>.<server_name> convention.

      According to the Debezium configuration file:

      • The debezium-heartbeat prefix is specified in the heartbeat.topics.prefix parameter.
      • The mpg server name is specified in the database.server.name parameter.

    • Cleanup policy: Compact.

    If you need data from multiple source clusters, create a separate service topic for each of them.

  3. Create a user named debezium.

  4. Grant debezium the ACCESS_ROLE_CONSUMER and ACCESS_ROLE_PRODUCER permissions for the topics you created.

Start Debezium

  1. Create a file with Debezium worker settings:

    /etc/debezium/worker.conf

    # AdminAPI connect properties
bootstrap.servers=<broker_host_1_FQDN>:9091,...,<broker_host_N_FQDN>:9091
sasl.mechanism=SCRAM-SHA-512
security.protocol=SASL_SSL
ssl.truststore.location=/etc/debezium/keystore.jks
ssl.truststore.password=<JKS_password>
sasl.jaas.config=org.apache.kafka.common.security.scram.ScramLoginModule required username="debezium" password="<debezium_user_password>";

# Producer connect properties
producer.sasl.mechanism=SCRAM-SHA-512
producer.security.protocol=SASL_SSL
producer.ssl.truststore.location=/etc/debezium/keystore.jks
producer.ssl.truststore.password=<JKS_password>
producer.sasl.jaas.config=org.apache.kafka.common.security.scram.ScramLoginModule required username="debezium" password="<debezium_user_password>";

# Worker properties
plugin.path=/etc/debezium/plugins/
key.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
value.converter=org.apache.kafka.connect.json.JsonConverter
key.converter.schemas.enable=true
value.converter.schemas.enable=true
offset.storage.file.filename=/etc/debezium/worker.offset

  2. In a separate terminal, start the connector:

    sudo /opt/kafka/bin/connect-standalone.sh \
    /etc/debezium/worker.conf \
    /etc/debezium/mdb-connector.conf

Check the health of Debezium

  1. In a separate terminal, run the kafkacat utility in consumer mode:

    kafkacat \
    -C \
    -b <broker_host_1_FQDN>:9091,...,<broker_host_N_FQDN>:9091 \
    -t mpg.public.measurements \
    -X security.protocol=SASL_SSL \
    -X sasl.mechanisms=SCRAM-SHA-512 \
    -X sasl.username=debezium \
    -X sasl.password=<password> \
    -X ssl.ca.location=/usr/local/share/ca-certificates/Yandex/YandexInternalRootCA.crt \
    -Z \
    -K:

    The output will return the data format schema of the db1.public.measurements table and information about the previously added rows.

    Example of the message fragment
    {
"schema": {
    ...
},
"payload": {
    "before": null,
    "after": {
        "device_id": "iv9a94th6rzt********",
        "datetime": 1591378020000000,
        "latitude": 55.70329,
        "longitude": 37.65472,
        "altitude": 427.5,
        "speed": 0.0,
        "battery_voltage": 23.5,
        "cabin_temperature": 17.0,
        "fuel_level": null
    },
    "source": {
        "version": "1.8.1.Final",
        "connector": "postgresql",
        "name": "mpg",
        "ts_ms": 1628245046882,
        "snapshot": "true",
        "db": "db1",
        "sequence": "[null,\"4328525512\"]",
        "schema": "public",
        "table": "measurements",
        "txId": 8861,
        "lsn": 4328525328,
        "xmin": null
    },
    "op": "r",
    "ts_ms": 1628245046893,
    "transaction": null
  }
}

  2. Connect to the source cluster.

    When connecting, you may get this error: ERROR Postgres roles LOGIN and REPLICATION are not assigned to user. You can ignore it, as it does not affect Debezium performance.

  3. Add another row to the measurements table:

    INSERT INTO public.measurements VALUES ('iv7b74th678t********', '2020-06-08 17:45:00', 53.70987913, 36.62549834, 378.0, 20.5, 5.3, 20, NULL);

  4. Make sure the terminal running kafkacat displays details about the added row.

Delete the resources you created

Delete the resources you no longer need to avoid paying for them:

  1. Delete the virtual machine.

    If you reserved a public static IP address for the virtual machine, release and delete it.

  2. Delete the clusters:

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